The REAL Victims (Sarcasm Alert)

Aren’t school shootings a big bummer? Yes! They are! But, dear readers, be sure to save a few of those Thoughts’n’Prayers® for the real victims of this week’s school shooting in Florida: Michael and Lisa Morrison, owners of Sunrise Tactical Supply of Coral Springs. That’s right, the people who sold Nikolas Cruz his AR-15:

The shop, whose displays had been stripped of any rifles or other guns Thursday evening, will remain closed indefinitely.

Its owners, who live in Coral Springs, are distraught, Rudman said.

“The tremendous sense of responsibility in this situation and just horribleness that they feel that one of their weapons fell into the hands of this maniac,” Rudman said. “They are scared — not just for their safety — but more importantly about how the reaction is going to be for the rest of the community as they try to reenter it.”

They are scared for their safety, you guys. As they try to “reenter” the community.

Give me a fucking break.

They sell weapons to people but they are scared for their safety? Oh boo fucking hoo. Conservative tears, you guys. What, thoughts and prayers aren’t good enough for you? Amazing.

Let me also add, one of their weapons did not “fall into the hands of this maniac,” as the lawyer says. They sold it to him. It was a retail transaction. Maybe you guys should think about opening an ice cream shop next time. Something a little less lethal.

Girtherism: America’s Cry For Help

[UPDATE]:

It’s already starting, you guys:

The report considers only those incidents motivated by international terrorist groups — so instances of domestic terrorism are not counted. Moreover, individuals captured overseas, extradited and brought to the United States to face trial are included in the same category as people who emigrated to the United States and were charged with terrorism offenses years later.

For example, Ahmed Abu Khattala, convicted in November in connection with the deadly 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, is counted in the same category as someone who successfully applied for a visa to enter the United States.

“Doing that intentionally confuses the threat of domestic terrorist attack with the number of foreigners, by increasing the number of foreigners,” Greenberg said. Extradited terrorism suspects are not immigrants, she said, and should be taken out of the sample.

What next, yellow stars on the jackets of immigrants? It’s happening again.

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In a hilarious take on the Obama birthers, there is a new conspiracy in town: “Trump Girthers.”

These are the folks calling bullshit on White House physician Dr. Ronny Jackson’s obviously falsified report following Trump’s annual physical:

But he did say that Mr. Trump’s weight is 239 pounds and that he is too sedentary. His cholesterol is too high, despite medicine to lower it, and Dr. Jackson said Mr. Trump would be increasing the 10-milligram dosage of Crestor to better control it.

At 6 feet 3 inches tall, Mr. Trump has a body mass index of 29.9, which is just shy of officially being obese. A New York driver’s license issued in 2012 listed him as 6 feet 2 inches tall, which would put him just into the obese category.

More than just a piece of delicious karma or even, as some are claiming, “fat shaming,” what we have here is lie shaming. A 70-year-old man is not going to grow an inch in six years unless, of course, that inch is the difference between being medically obese and just “overweight.” The internet has had a lot of fun with this; “Guardians Of The Galaxy” Director James Gunn offered to donate $100,000 to Trump’s favorite charity if he would “get on an accurate scale” (a take on Trump’s own $5 million birther promise. By the way, whatever happened with that?). Gunn later quipped,

I would be afraid that it’s the Ku Klux Klan but there’s no way in hell he’s 239 pounds, so I don’t have to worry about it.

And the internet has been quick to post photos of Trump next to other 6’3″ people, or even the 6’1″ President Obama:

Tempting though it may be to laugh at this nonsense, it actually illustrates a far more nefarious tendency in this administration: a need to lie on behalf of a president who has so obviously made lying a job requirement. And make no mistake: history is filled with examples of how dangerous this can be in the hands of one with tremendous power.

From day one we’ve had Trump and those associated with him saying demonstrably, stupidly false things purely to fluff the Trump ego. It literally started on Day One with Sean Spicer lying, repeatedly, about the size of Trump’s inauguration crowd, then lying to cover up his lie. These are silly, unimportant things to lie about and also easily verified, yet someone who works for the president of the United States has been forced to trash his own credibility in a humiliating way so that Trump can continue to live in an alternate universe where he is respected and adored.

We have politicians in Trump’s own party trying to curry favor by sending jars of candy, his favorite flavors hand-selected by an aide who, I dunno, probably had more important stuff he or she could have been doing that day besides separating out the red and pink Starbursts (we pay these peoples’ salaries, don’t forget). It has now become cliche to say, “imagine the reaction if Obama had done this…” but seriously, imagine if a Democratic Senator had given Obama jars of M&Ms with the brown ones removed. Heck, they lost their shit when he spoke to crowds of thousands (raise your hand if you saw one of these bumper stickers after the 2008 election; I sure did).

And it continues today, with Trump falsely claiming that his support among African Americans has doubled. It hasn’t. The folks at Breitbart and Fox & Friends just can’t do statistics.

This is how dictators and authoritarian leaders of Banana Republics behave, not leaders of free democracies. Toadies and sycophants debasing themselves so Dear Leader’s fantasy of being adored is not something we Americans have experienced before and it undermines America’s institutions. We saw it yesterday with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s amnesia on the “shithole” controversy.

If you’re going to publicly humiliate yourself and undermine your credibility on things like whether the president is obese or had the largest crowd size in the history of crowds, ever, period … I mean, where does it stop? He’s already lied about illegal votes, who’s to say he won’t do it again?

Be careful about writing this stuff off as silly internet fun and games. It’s not. It’s democracy’s cry for help.

Fun With Horrible People

Those wacky kids are having a field day with the utterly tone deaf photo of Steve Mnuchin and his horrible wife Louise Linton, visiting their money. The “money shot” heard round the internet was just rife for mocking, and the internet did not disappoint.

Some Friday funnies:

These showed up after someone noticed that Linton was dressed like Kylo Ren from “Star Wars”:

The Mnuchins are truly horrible people and I shall make fun of them until they are run out of Washington, D.C. Someone said if your signature were on the U.S. money you’d take that photo too; maybe, but I sure as hell know better than to Tweet it out to the world.

And Then There Were Four

When a reader requested more furbaby pictures, I’m sure this wasn’t what he had in mind. But, sad news from the Beale household: yesterday we had to say goodbye to our little Oscar.

Oscar was literally found in the street by our house and named by blog commenters. He was FIV+, so we knew he wouldn’t have a long life, but the end came suddenly and unexpectedly. He started having seizures a couple of days ago and they got increasingly violent and frequent. One seizure at the vet’s office left him blind. So yesterday we helped him across the rainbow bridge. He died in his favorite place: my arms. He was six years old.

Farewell, little buddy. You were a bundle of love in your short life. You are missed.

Oscar’s First Christmas Tree

Oscar’s 2nd Favorite Place: The Porch

Hiding From The Vet

Where Am I?

Though I FEEL like hiding under the bed during the awful Trump era, I’m actually just busy teaching, dealing with some health issues, writing my Senators and Congress Critters, cooking, going to hockey games (go Preds!) … you know, having a life.

I’m sorry I’ve abandoned the blog. I just haven’t felt up to writing during this absurd Trump era. Everything that could be said is being said by people smarter, better educated, better paid (ha!), and better equipped to handle the craziness of this modern America. When even Senator Bob Corker and I agree that the current occupant of the White House is a toddler, well … you know American politics has jumped the shark.

But I know some of you miss talking to each other and I forgot that my blog stops accepting comments on a post after two weeks or so. So here is a “fresh sheet,” as we used to say in the Atrios days.

Feel free to vent about the toddler-in-chief, the completely crazy idea that Roy Moore might actually be going to the U.S. Senate, our pending nuclear showdown with North Korea, your favorite chili recipe, or what have you.

I’ll be back someday, I promise. Right now, the world is just too sad.

Tennessee Gun Report

While the state tries to figure out if it has the worst or best accidental gun fatality rate in the land, Greene County grapples with its own dubious distinction, leading the state in gunfail. It’s something I’ve long suspected.

Sheriff Hankins said after we showed him the high number of gun incidents in his county, he plans to work with area gun shops and ranges to set up more classes and raise awareness about safety.

Probably a good idea, bro. Because ….. read on.

• September 25, 2016:

A 12-year-old in Nasville was shot in the leg by another child this morning. Update:

Metro Capt. Jason Reinbold said the shooting took place when a group of children […] ran out to the driveway to meet a visitor who had just arrived. The visitor, a woman who has not been identified, had a gun in her car, Reinbold said.

The 2-year-old child found the gun and accidentally fired, hitting the 12-year-old in the leg, Reinbold said.

Dear god, let’s charge that idiot woman with negligence.

• September 24, 2016:

There appears to have been an accidental shooting in Memphis, with the victim in critical condition. No other information at this time, however.

• September 23, 2016:

1- One of our safest, most responsible citizens EVAH took his gun to work, as the law allows, and promptly shot the place up, killing two supervisors before turning the gun on  himself. Slow clap, Tennessee. Getting harder to tell the good guys with guns from the bad  guys.

2- A Madison Co. corrections officer has been suspended after his gun discharged at the jail.

• September 22, 2016:

Another incident involving a CCW holder, this one out of Columbia. Guy was drunk and brandishing a gun at a car containing children in a case of rage, because safest, most responsible, etc.

• September 21, 2016:

A 15-year-old student brought a gun to Siegel High School in Rutherford County.

• September 16, 2016:

1- Congratulations, Greeneville! The state capital of gunfail notches an entry in this week’s run-down: a man accidentally shot a relative in the eye attempting to shoot a dog. For some reason I get the feeling that a trailer park might have been involved. Just a hunch.

2- A Murfreesboro man has been charged with plotting to assassinate two Democratic members of Congress, neither of whom are from Tennessee, and threatening to shoot up a courthouse:

Kaehiokahouna Stewart, 36, was arrested Friday morning at his home, officials said. Court documents and officials say Stewart went so far as to buy a plane ticket to Hawaii to carry out his murder plot.

A complaint filed by the government says Stewart sent threatening emails and posted threatening videos on social media, specifically targeting U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono and U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.

On Aug. 19, Stewart sent an email saying he would fly from Nashville to Honolulu on Nov. 1 “with the intent to shoot people at the Princess Jonah Federal Building,” a news release from U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee David Rivera’s office says.

The complaint says Stewart has sent grievances to various government officials, including Hirono, Gabbard and President Barack Obama, since November 2013.

“Stewart falsely believed that his (Social Security number) had been duplicated and issued to a fellow soldier he met while stationed at Camp Stanley in Korea in 2002,” the news release says.

He wrote to the Social Security Administration and Department of Defense saying they ruined his life.

“Stewart demanded he receive 100% Veterans Administration disability and $50 billion or he would purchase a gun and a silencer and would not be responsible for any crimes he committed,” the complaint says. It also says Stewart’s Social Security number was determined to be one digit different from the other U.S. Army soldier.

So many crazy people out there and every damn one of them can buy a gun, no questions asked.

• September 14, 2016:
1- A Roan Mountain hunter was accidentally shot when his hunting partner tripped.

2- Members of the Tennessee Firearms Assn. tried to test the Tennessee Valley Fair’s ban on firearms in order to gain standing for a legal challenge of the ban.

Nobody actually entered the fairgrounds or was arrested. However, they recorded a police officer telling them they’d be “subject” to arrest if they entered the fair armed.

Okie dokie.

• September 13, 2016:

Multiple weapons stolen from a home in Memphis.

• September 10, 2016:

1- Two are injured in separate accidental shooting incidents in Clarksville:

CLARKSVILLE — One man was injured Friday night after accidentally shooting himself while cleaning a gun, and another was hit by stray gunfire during an altercation on Ryder Avenue early Saturday morning, according to Clarksville Police.

Are we safer yet?

2- A gun-toting UT football fan didn’t show much sense when voicing her support for the Vols at the Battle of Bristol:

• September 9, 2016:

1- Two Nashville teenagers tried to rob a pizza delivery man but it all went awry when one of the robbers accidentally shot himself in the arm.

2- This responsible Chattanooga-area gun owner launched a standoff with law enforcement and fired as many as 30 shots at 6 sheriff’s deputies.

We haven’t really talked about this but Google “standoff with police” and be amazed at the huge number of angry white males armed for battle who are terrorizing their neighborhoods these days. It’s really quite shocking.

• September 8, 2016:

In Louisville (Tennessee, not Kentucky) a woman isn’t charged after shooting a nine-year-old in the head. Because, accidents:

The sheriff’s office said the boy’s mother was handling the gun while the boy was playing and it went off by accident.

They said the round traveled through the floor and sub-floor to to the first floor and struck the boy on the forehead.

• September 5, 2016:

A dispute between neighbors in Drummonds starts with one firing gunshots into the woods and ends with the other bulldozing a house in the middle of the night.

• September 2, 2016:

A Goodlettsville man was arrested for trying to enter Canada with a gun.

I Have Questions

Kudos to law enforcement for their quick apprehension of the Texas bombing suspect.

Wait, Texas? Yup:

Cary Lee Ogborn, 50, was arrested late Friday after retrieving a package he thought contained explosives powerful enough to maim or kill people or destroy buildings.

This is the other terror plot from last weekend, the one cable news ignored, probably because the guy’s name is Cary Lee Ogborn, not something Muslim-y like Ahmed or Mohammed.

I’d like to know where Ogborn was radicalized. Did he act alone? Did he belong to a church or other group which spread anti-U.S. beliefs? Is he part of a larger network, or is he a “lone wolf”? What materials did he read, what radio shows did he listen to, what websites did he visit?

We may never know because this story has gone virtually ignored.

If I find out I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I’m without a computer this week, and am posting this via my iPhone. Please forgive any mistakes or typos.

Privatize The Gains, Socialize The Losses

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, the richest governor in America, has been working to make his family business even richer, and the rest of us poorer, according to The Tennesseean:

After taking office, Gov. Bill Haslam reconstituted an obscure board that enforces environmental rules for the industry that helped make him the richest elected official in America.

Since then, the Underground Storage Tank and Solid Waste Disposal Control Board has taken steps to shift the financial burden of cleaning up toxic spills at gas stations and truck stops from business owners to taxpayers.

The 14-member board, 12 of whom are appointed by the governor, sets rules for the $50 million environmental fund overseen by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, or TDEC. The fund has been paying to clean up spills since 1990. It is financed by a combination of a gas tax paid by consumers at the pump and an annual fee paid by owners of petroleum tanks.

Since the board has been reconfigured, members representing consumers have been eliminated.

The board, which retained its four petroleum industry members, has voted in favor of a resolution to increase the state dollars available to private companies for environmental spills caused by failures or accidents from $1 million to $2 million. That became law in 2015.

This year, a new law gives the board the power to give all gas stations and truck stops a big break — suspending their annual fees to the cleanup fund entirely. Some board members have signaled their support for eliminating those fees this year — despite hearing from the man in charge of the state’s underground storage tank program that a “historically high burden of this funding has shifted onto the public.”

Suspending the industry’s financial contributions would leave taxpayers, who haven’t gotten the same breaks as gas stations and truck stops, bearing full financial responsibility for toxic spills.

Surpriiiise, surpriiise!

This isn’t the first time Gov. Haslam has used his position to enrich his crooked family business. But … blind trusts, yada yada.

And I know my conservative friends are going to say, “But wait, Beale, those costs get handed down to consumers anyway,” after all, isn’t that what they always say? Isn’t that the whole point of “deregulation” and the glorious, unfettered free hand of the market and all that crap? The thing is, the costs don’t get passed down to consumers on a dollar for dollar basis, there is only so much of this “passing on to consumers” that the market can bear.

And this is the difference between Republicans and Democrats. Democrats believe in making industry pay for the damage they cause. If you pollute, you pay. If you make a mess, you clean it up. If your underground storage tanks are leaking, you fix it, and you fix the mess you made. It’s like kindergarten, people. Easy-peasy.

Republicans think that’s so unfair, you guys! Republicans believe that their rich friends should be allowed to do whatever they want, and let the chips fall where they may. Because they think that when they prosper, everyone prospers. It “trickles down,” don’tcha know. They still believe that nonsense!

Meanwhile, the only thing trickling down is polluted ground water and contaminated soil. But what do they care? They live in their gated communities with the private water source and they jet off to Aspen and Europe and all that, where they don’t have to live with the mess they create. They aren’t really affected, are they? It’s not their groundwater, is it? It’s yours! If you want it to be clean, you pay for it! That’s what they believe.

They are truly horrible people.

Tennessee Gun Report

I’m way behind on this, sorry. Life intervened.

While Tennessee Republicans give away AR-15s as door prizes, like they’re waffle irons, we’ve got plenty of gunfail to give us pause.

• June 23, 2016:

A Red Bank man accidentally shot himself in the leg and has no idea how it happened.

It happened on Pinehurst Avenue.

Police Chief Tim Cristol tells us the man was going to his car when he shot himself in the leg.

He says he’s not exactly sure what happened.

The gun was in the man’s bag when it fired.

But remember, guns don’t shoot people.

• June 21, 2016:

A responsible Bethpage homeowner shot at a teenager he thought was responsible for vandalizing his mailbox:

Joshua Taylor told Sumner County Sheriff’s Deputies that he decided to “sit up and wait” for the teens who he suspected had damaged his mailbox on three separate occasions last week.

Just after midnight on Monday, he heard an ATV drive by his home in the dark, officials say the 29-year-old father grabbed his 12 gauge shot gun and fired a single shot in the direction of the teenagers. One of them was hit with 56 pellets across his back, legs and arms.

“I was like ‘woah I just got shot’ I didn’t know what to do I just started running for my life I didn’t want to die or anything,” the 13-year-old told NewsChannel 5 on Tuesday.

Deputies said one of the teenager’s friends admitted to videotaping himself vandalizing Joshua Taylor mailbox on Haskell Akins Road but they say Taylor made a mistake in the way he dealt with the situation.

That was super-responsible.

• June 20, 2016:

A man was accidentally shot in the head at Nashville Shores campground. Nashville Shores is a waterpark located on Percy Priest Lake.

• June 16, 2016:

Shelbyville: One house. Two unlocked vehicles, both with guns in them. Both were stolen over night. You lose your right to call yourself a responsible gun owner when you’re that big of a dumbass.

• June 15, 2016:

1- Greeneville, the Colorado Springs of Tennessee (at least as far as the community’s disproportionate number of gun incidents is concerned), notches another appearance on the report after an 18-year-old man cleaning his rifle accidentally shot himself in the face.

2- This Johnson City woman says she accidentally shot and killed her husband:

Keeva Ann Delaney (Wilson), 20, 205 Edna Court, Apt. 94 — charged with voluntary manslaughter and four counts of felony reckless endangerment after the June 6 early morning shooting at her apartment — told police the gun accidentally went off after her husband hit her in the face and she fell backward, according to a police investigator’s testimony during Wednesday’s preliminary hearing in Sessions Court.

I’m confused. I thought we women were told if we armed ourselves we could protect ourselves from our domestic abusers? So why isn’t this self-defense?

• June 13, 2016:

1- A Nashville five-year-old was struck in the heart with a BB shot by his 10-year-old brother. The injury required two surgeries.

2- Andy Holt is still an asshole.

• June 9, 2016:

Drunk Knoxville driver charged with possessing a handgun while under the influence. But that’s not the strangest part of this story. For that you’ll have to go to the link.

• June 7, 2016:

1- A Nashville man trying to clear his pistol accidentally shot himself in the leg. He’ll be okay.

2- A Chattanooga lady attending a wrestling match in Ringgold, Ga. (just across the state line), took the show a little too seriously and held a pro-wrestler and his manager at gunpoint. I swear to God, nothing screams we need gun control louder than knowing idiots like this are armed:

Lee showed us what happened during Saturday night’s monthly wrestling match at the AWF Arena off Highway 41 in Ringgold.

He had another wrestler tied to the ropes and was hitting him with a chair.

It was all part of the show, but Lee said one 50-year-old fan apparently took it too seriously when she came running to the ring with a knife, trying to help the wrestler escape.

“She was reaching through the ring, cutting him loose,” he explained.

Patricia Crowe told deputies she drew her pistol after Lee took a jab at her looks.

“The lady was missing a few teeth, so I told her to sit her toothless self down,” he said.

Witnesses said Crowe aimed a 38-caliber handgun at the wrestler and his manager. More than 150 people were sitting ringside, including several children.

“The gun was loaded,” Lee said. “It even had one in the chamber and the safety was off.”

Lee was able to take the gun from the woman. He hold her until officers could get there.

The incident prompted changes in security. Now, fans will have to walk through metal detectors to get in.

Lee said he’s not taking any chances at the next match.

“(The gun) could’ve easily went off and somebody could have lost their life,” he said.

Crowe was released from the Catoosa County Jail on Monday after posting a $4,000 bond. She has been banned from all future AWF wrestling events.

But she can still carry a gun, right? Because Freedom?

Marketed Patriotism

Patriotism as a marketing ploy is something we haven’t seen since the Bush years, but it appears to be making a comeback. We’ve got two local ads here in Nashville that exploit patriotism, and I’m trying to decide which is worse: Marathon Petroleum’s super-serious country song, “Full Tank of Freedom,” or the campy Eagle Steve character brought to us from U.S. Pest Protection.

Check out Marathon’s “Full Tank of Freedom”:

Can you say cheesy? Wouldn’t “freedom” mean not having to buy any gas in the first place? And considering how we’ve gone to war in the Middle East to secure that supply of “freedom”, this just strikes me as completely tone deaf. All I can say is, this song makes me glad I drive an electric car.

Eagle Steve, on the other hand, is pure, undiluted camp:

Cheesy, yes, but in a self-aware, Colbert Report sort of way. My favorite part is when the man shakes hands (wings?) with the eagle.

Any super cheesy local ads in your town?